Nawaz urges permanent UN members to ask India to stop bloodshed in held Kashmir

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday wrote to heads of state of permanent UN member countries (P5), urging them to call on the Indian government to immediately cease bloodshed in India-held Kashmir and implement UNSC resolutions on Kashmir.

The United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) five permanent members, the P5, include China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Nawaz highlighted human rights and humanitarian law violations in occupied Kashmir being perpetrated by Indian forces and termed the Kashmir dispute a constant source of tension and instability in the region and a threat to international peace and security.

The premier urged the P5 countries to ask India to honour its human rights obligations and commitment to the Kashmiri people, and highlighted Pakistan’s commitment to peacefully resolve the dispute in accordance with UNSC resolutions.

He also called on the P5 to fulfil their responsibility with regard to the Kashmir dispute, one of the oldest internationally recognised unresolved disputes on the UNSC agenda.

Despite the passage of more than 68 years since the adoption of multiple resolutions, the people of Kashmir still await the implementation of these resolutions which promised them the right to self-determination to be exercised through the holding of a free and impartial plebiscite under UN auspices.

“Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such,” he tweeted.

A Pakistani diplomat at the United Nations called it “a very reckless statement” and drew attention to India’s “ruthless military campaign” in the Valley where Indian security forces had killed 104 civilians and injured more than 10,000 since early July.